Pop Culture Blog

Q&A: Making ‘Blazing Saddles’ was a gas for Dallas native Burton Gilliam

Burton Gilliam greets fans at a "Blazing Saddles" showing at during the Cinemark Classic Series at Cinemark Legacy and XD in Plano on May 15. (Kye R. Lee/Staff Photographer)

Burton Gilliam can lay claim to a cinema first.

In that infamous campfire scene in 1974′s Blazing Saddles, Gilliam, smiling widely after gulping down a plateful of beans, raised one leg and let fly, igniting at least a dozen fellow cowhands to do the same.

That scene put Gilliam in the books as the “first man ever to pass wind in a Hollywood motion picture.”

Well, at least that’s what the Wikipedia entry states. And it’s denoted with a “citation needed” tag. But one thing’s for certain: Gilliam used the opportunity to make noise in one of the top comedies of the 20th century.

And after appearing in dozens of movies, he’s still being heard decades later.

As Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles celebrates its 40th anniversary with a Blu-ray release this month, the 75-year-old Gilliam has been doing his part to provide fans a personal connection with appearances at local screenings. He’s done one in Plano. On Thursday, he’ll bring that recognizable broad smile of his to the B&B Theatres Wylie for a Q&A and autograph session with fans.

He loves talking about Blazing Saddles.

Gilliam, an Allen resident and Dallas native, took a break from his appearance schedule (he’s making a movie called The Wisdom to Know the Difference with Daniel Baldwin and still doing commercials) for a Q&A with the Pop Culture blog.

Pop Culture: About that passed wind scene. Uh, explain that, please.

Gilliam: Mel told me that he was going to make me famous because this has never been done in a movie before. I didn’t know that. You know, just 10 days before, I was working at the fire department in Dallas. Mel told me to “do it like you’re at the fire department … let me see what you got.” I said, “Oh, I can do this. It’s like falling off a log.” I remember that it took a day and a half to do a complete scene. The first few times, we laughed and we wondered whether it was funny. Or if it was just silly. Many of us wondered that out loud. We had no idea.

Brooks has gone back and forth on whether the crude humor used in Blazing Saddles could work today. Quentin Tarantino says Django Unchained wouldn’t have happened without Blazing Saddles. Seth MacFarlane, whose A Million Ways to Die in the West debuts Friday, says Blazing Saddles was an influence. Where do you stand on this?

Gilliam: No. It couldn’t happen like that today. Mel knows you couldn’t do Blazing Saddles today — well, not the way it was done then. It came at just the right time. We had just gone through the hippie era, gone through Vietnam, gone through political uprisings. I think — and I was never told this; I just thought of it myself — it was a perfect time for something like this to happen.

Was the cast aware of the movie’s sharp satirical edge?

Gilliam: I remember about the second week we were working on the movie, we were in the desert, northeast of LA, about 100 miles out. Two days in a row, two big black Cadillacs full of guys in suits pulled up. (Co-star) Alex (Karras) told me there’s talk about shutting this thing down. He said it was the “dailies.” (The guys in the suits) don’t like the dailies. They knew what was going to be said and done and they were not sold on it when they saw it on film. But Mel stuck by his guns, and he had final approval on whether it was shown or not. So he pushed it on through there.

Did it seem like it was going to be a hit?

Gilliam: The first screening we had, there were about 200 people. At one of the screening rooms in Warner Bros., I sat with Mel and Gene (Wilder) with a couple of other people. Everyone went nuts. After it was over, we said ‘gawlee, it looks like gonna be a hit.’ But Mel says ‘they’re paid to be here, screenings don’t mean anything, let’s see it before a paid audience.’ When we had the world premiere, it was even better. People were just going nuts. We knew that we gotta picture here and it will make a whole lot of money. It took about 10 years for me to figure out that it was a big hit and another 10 years to figure out this thing is not ever going away.

And you’re OK with that?

Gilliam: It’s had a life of its own. And it will always be a part of who I am. When I die, and I haven’t told anyone of this, when I die, the funeral music is going to be the theme of Blazing Saddles. (Softly singing) “He rode a blazing saddle …” Then, it will be music and not the words … (Now, humming the theme as if it were slow memorial service music). It will be done real slow. Hopefully, everyone will smile.

People in these parts recall your auto commercials. You’re even wearing the same red shirt and leather vest that your character Lyle wore in the movie. Is that how you keep busy?

Gilliam: I still do about 30 to 40 commercials a year. And I make appearances all over the country, many of them with some sort of Blazing Saddles theme to it. There’s birthday parties. And all sorts of crazy Blazing Saddles stuff. Yep, it’s been my fortune and it’s been so good for me. Thank you, Mel Brooks.

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